Scottish Gothic and Celtic Revival in “Cobweb Hall” by Sir George Douglas

© Copyright 2024 Erik Tahiliani, Toronto Metropolitan University

Introduction & The Evergreen: A Northern Seasonal

The Evergreen: A Northern Seasonal was a product of Celtic resistance during the fin de siècle period in Scotland. According to Victor Brantford, a reviewer of the little magazine, one of its ambitions was “to restore to Edinburgh its position as a cultural capital, and to make Scotland again a power (of culture).” In its online General Introduction, the little magazine was described as an “organ of Celtic continuity and renewal” due to its cultural revivalist intentions and connection to Celtic tradition (Kooistra 2). Despite coming from “one of the filthiest and most degraded slums of Europe” as Brantford described in his review, he also praised The Evergreen to be a “fine art production.” It consists of artwork, short stories, poetry, and essays by Scottish writers, many of which incorporate Celtic influences into the work featured in the little magazine. Brantford states that The Evergreen “specifically concerns itself with […] Scottish nationalism, Celtic literature, and art…” which adheres to the views of the Celtic Revival. The creator was Patrick Geddes, who had ambitions of “countering centralisation [to London]” and “to reanimate Scottish culture” that seemed to be under siege (Shaw 18). He came together with many other Scottish artists and writers to produce one of the most famous little magazines of the fin de siècle period.

One method that many writers of the Celtic Revival gravitated towards was using a blend of popular literary genres with elements of Celtic culture and mythology. An essential facet of keeping culture alive is telling and retelling folktales and mythology, and blending those with genres that are popular is a method writers could employ to keep Victorian readers engaged with the culture and its traditions. At the time of The Evergreen’s publishing, there was a “nineteenth-century audience hungry for Gothic narratives” (Gilbert 341). One short story featured in The Evergreen’s Autumn 1895 volume was “Cobweb Hall” by Sir George Douglas. This story is a retelling of a Berwickshire folktale about the murder of an eccentric wealthy heiress carried out by her butler. I will be unpacking how Sir George Douglas incorporates elements of Gothic literature into his retelling of a traditional Celtic folktale in order to keep nineteenth-century readers engaged with the culture and strengthen Scottish identity alongside other writers of the Celtic Revival.

Cultural Revivalism

According to Michael Shaw, many fin de siècle Scottish writers and artists felt threatened by “the increasing marginality of Scottish identities, cultures and traditions in this period” largely due to the centralisation of intelligence and power towards London, England (5-7). Several of these individuals took it upon themselves to preserve Celtic culture and strengthen Scottish national identity, including the creator of The Evergreen, Patrick Geddes. This movement is often referred to as the Celtic Revival or Renaissance. Cultural revivalism movements were often “defined by returning to folklore, mythologies, histories and traditional crafts” in order to preserve cultural identity from diminishing (6). The Evergreen features three different adaptations of traditional Celtic folktales, including “Cobweb Hall” by Sir George Douglas, “Amel and Penhor” by Edith Wingtate Ringer, and a version of “Mary of the Gael” by Fiona Macleod. The inclusion of these folk adaptations is one critical display of The Evergreen’s roots in Celtic culture and revivalist intentions. In an essay by Geddes, it is implied that “Scots should increasingly turn to Celtic art, literature and tradition to nourish the national culture” (Shaw 19) and The Evergreen did exactly that.

Scottish Gothic

At the centre of Scottish Gothic is “an association between the national and the uncanny or supernatural” (Duncan 123). Beyond the typical eeriness and supernatural elements of traditional Gothic literature, Scottish Gothic incorporates a sense of nationalism as well. With threats of cultural assimilation, many Scots felt alienated from their national identity and Celtic roots. Scottish Gothic literature was a method to incorporate popular Gothic literature elements with Celtic views and traditions and discuss the social contexts of marginality and cultural alienation in a literary setting. Many writers took to a combination of “the peculiar sense of national history, tradition and uncanniness” to produce Scottish Gothic literature engaging with societal and cultural issues (Gilbert 330). Gothic literature in general is known to discover “new ways of representing complex ideas of debates”, which coincides with the social and political contexts of Scotland in the 1800s (Smith 8).

Celtic Revival Authors

Sir George Douglas held the title of “Fifth baronet of Springwood Park” (Johnston 36), which was his family home in the Scottish Borders. His full name was George Brisbane Scott Douglas. His upbringing in the Borders gave him “extra authenticity” in his retelling of Cobweb Hall, as that is where he claimed the story originally circulated (Kooistra 3). Douglas’s early exposure to Celtic folklore and upbringing in the Borders also greatly influenced his writing career. Beyond “Cobweb Hall”, he wrote several compilation books of Celtic-influenced stories, poems, and folktales. One example was his book New Border Tales published in 1892. Additionally he wrote a biography of James Hogg, who was a staple writer of the Scottish Gothic genre (Cousin). “Cobweb Hall” includes several elements of Scottish Gothic including inspiration from a Celtic folk tale, suspense and paranoia throughout the novel, an eerie abandoned manor, and exploration of moral monstrosity. While he may not be as renowned as some of his contemporaries, such as Patrick Geddes or Robert Louis Stevenson, his contributions to the Scottish Gothic genre and Celtic Revival were not minor.

According to Ian Duncan, the first Scottish writer to achieve the formation of “a distinctive genre” based on “vernacular storytelling” of Celtic folk traditions was Robert Burns in the 1780s (126). His poem “Tam o’ Shanter: A Tale” incorporates elements of folklore into topics that would appeal to his contemporary audience, such as “gender difference, homosociality, and a masculine fantasy structure of pleasure, phobia, and prohibition” (126). The poem created a pattern that later writers followed when occupying “modern supernatural narrative[s]” which was a staple area of Scottish Gothic (126). Many Scottish writers after Burns contributed to the genre he established, including Walter Scott, James Hogg, and Robert Louis Stevenson. Gothic was a relevant and popular genre throughout the 1800s in Scotland, steadily increasing by the alienation of national identity and the threat of England that stripped Scotland of its cultural powers. Thus, it became the genre that writers looked to incorporate in their folkloric stories in order to appeal to their nineteenth century audience.

Ian Duncan highlights Walter Scott’s importance in the Scottish Gothic genre by stating that he is the one who created “the particular national version of ‘Gothic’ as the resurgence of a pre-modern (…) cultural force” (128). His novel Waverley published in 1814, as well as subsequent novels by Scott combined elements of Gothic literature with concepts of Scottish national identity, which is the centre theme of Scottish Gothic. James Hogg was another important figure of the Scottish Gothic genre and Celtic Revival. Scott was a major influence for Hogg, and took the man under his wing “as an author of ballads, tales, and sketches on folkloric themes” which culminated in Hogg’s contributions to Scottish Gothic (130). Duncan discusses Hogg’s experimentation with “conventions and cultural meanings of Gothic” which appear vividly in many of his works, including The Brownie of Bodsbeck (130).

The final author I will discuss is Robert Louis Stevenson, whose contributions to Scottish Gothic literature are relevant even in the twenty-first century. He is most popular for his work Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, published in 1886. This is an exemplary example of how writers used Scottish Gothic to contribute to the Celtic Revival. The novel has been described as “engaging so closely with Scottish folklore, literary tradition and the political and religious history of the nation” which is largely inspired by Stevenson’s upbringing (Gilbert 358). Throughout his childhood and on, his mind was “populated by a range of Scottish ‘bogles’ (ghosts, spectres of phantoms that cause fright)” whose identities stem from ancient Celtic mythology and folk tales (356). This is something Stevenson shares with Douglas, who grew up in the Scottish Borders where many Celtic folk tales circulated. Both of their upbringings and early exposures to Celtic mythology influenced their writing careers and lead to them becoming staple figures in the Scottish Gothic genre, as well as members of the Celtic Revival movement. Similar to “Cobweb Hall”, Stevenson’s novel also explores themes of human monstrosity and morality, both including characters who harm others for their own gain. This is a staple element of Gothic literature at the time, which was shifting from the evil of monsters and boogeymen to the evil of mankind (Smith 87). 

Celtic and Gothic Elements in “Cobweb Hall” 

Sir George Douglas successfully incorporates elements of Scottish Gothic literature into his retelling of an old Berwickshire folktale in order to keep a nineteenth-century engaged with Celtic culture. “Cobweb Hall” begins by describing a “deserted and neglected” manor that is “situated in the Merse of Berwickshire” (Douglas 43). The fact that the first sentence of the story mentions the location near the Scottish Borders highlights its ties to Scottish identity right from the beginning. It also has a central theme of Celtic folklore, as it is a direct retelling of a Scottish folk tale. Additionally, the concept of an abandoned or haunted house is one element of Gothic literature. Its desolated nature adds to the eeriness of the shunned mansion. The manor itself also has the additional Gothic element of becoming abandoned due to a heinous crime taking place.

Themes of greed and evil flourish during the murder of Mrs. Clinkscales, the eccentric and wealthy heiress who owned Cobweb Hall in its former glory. The murder was committed by Machell Weir, Mrs. Clinkscales’ head butler, who slashed her throat and stole her wealth before fleeing (Douglas 47). Mrs. Clinkscales was mistrustful and suspicious of many, however “she had the greatest confidence in [Weir]” after he had been serving her for years (45). This makes her murder even more heinous, as it was carried out by someone she trusted and knew intimately, and whose job was to serve and protect her. The exploration of moral monstrosity parallels themes from Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. According to Andrew Smith, one dominating characteristic of 1790s-1890s Gothic was “the progressive internalisation of ‘evil’” (87). Instead of ghosts and monsters, the narrative that evil is within humanity was explored by several Scottish Gothic writers of the time period, including Stevenson and Douglas.

Unlike other Gothic literature, the supernatural does not have a presence in “Cobweb Hall”, as the narrator particularly states in the introduction that “The house is not haunted, but it is shunned, which is perhaps worse” (Douglas 43). However, there are still traditional Gothic elements present in the short story. There is a sense of unease and paranoia throughout the story which is apparent in most Gothic literature. Foreshadowing the location of the killer, one of the female servants claimed she said “the butler’s ghost” out in the field (49). It turns out that what she actually saw was the butler and murderer himself, hiding in the beanstalks. Towards the end of the story, tension is created when the shearers begin to gradually plow the field where the murderer is hiding. There were signs that the butler was hiding there, but they were ignored by the shearers which created tension and anticipation before the final thrill. Suspense and eeriness is consistent throughout the story, evolving from being unaware of the murderer’s identity to waiting for something to be caught in the bean fields.

Conclusion

The Celtic Revival began in 1800s Scotland when writers and artists became dissatisfied with the centralisation to London and threat to Scottish culture and national identity (Shaw 3). One method of reviving a culture is retelling its mythologies and folklore, in order to keep the traditions and stories alive. However, writers needed a method to keep contemporary readers engaged with ancient stories, which led them to incorporating elements of popular genres into retellings of folk tales and myths. Patrick Geddes created The Evergreen in order to revive Scotland’s cultural power, as a part of the Celtic Revival movement. One short story published in the Autumn 1895 volume of The Evergreen is “Cobweb Hall” by Sir George Douglas. Douglas successfully incorporates themes and elements from Scottish Gothic into the retelling of a Celtic folk story which circulated in the Scottish Borders, in order to keep nineteenth century readers engaged with Celtic culture. This was a task undertaken by many writers alongside Douglas, such as Scott, Hogg, and Stevenson.

Works Cited

Brantford, Victor. “OLD EDINBURG AND THE EVERGREEN.” Review of The Evergreen: A Northern Seasonal, vol. 2, Autumn 1895, The Bookman, Dec. 1895, pp. 88–90. Yellow Nineties 2.0, edited by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Toronto Metropolitan University Centre for Digital Humanities, 2019. https://1890s.ca/EG2_Review_Bookman_1895/.

Cousin, John W. A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature, J.M Dent & Sons Ltd, 1910. Project Gutenberg, https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/13240. 

Douglas, Sir George. “Cobweb Hall.” The Evergreen: A Northern Seasonal, vol. 2, Autumn 1895, pp. 43-55. Evergreen Digital Edition, edited by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, 2016-2018. Yellow Nineties 2.0, General Editor Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Toronto Metropolitan University Centre for Digital Humanities, 2019. https://1890s.ca/egv2_douglas_cobweb/. 

Duncan, Ian. “Walter Scott, James Hogg, and Scottish Gothic.” A New Companion to the Gothic, edited by David Punter, Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2012, pp. 123–134. Wiley Online Library, https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.ezproxy.lib.torontomu.ca/doi/epdf/10.1002/9781444354959.ch8.

Gilbert, Suzanne, and Catherine Spooner. “The Gothic in Nineteenth-Century Scotland.” The Cambridge History of the Gothic, edited by Dale Townshend and Angela Wright, Cambridge University Press, 2020, pp. 328–358. Cambridge Core, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108561082.016. 

Johnson, Harvey G. The Heraldry of the Douglases, W. & A. K. Johnston, 1907, p. 36. National Library of Scotland, https://digital.nls.uk/95281267.

Kooistra, Lorraine Janzen. “Critical Introduction to The Evergreen: A Northern Seasonal, Volume 2: Fall 1895.” Evergreen Digital Edition, Yellow Nineties 2.0, Toronto Metropolitan University Centre for Digital Humanities, 2019. https://1890s.ca/egv2_introduction/.

———. “General Introduction to The Evergreen: A Northern Seasonal.” Evergreen Digital Edition, Yellow Nineties 2.0, Toronto Metropolitan University Centre for Digital Humanities, 2019. https://1890s.ca/the-evergreen-general-introduction/.

Shaw, Michael. The Fin-De-Siècle Scottish Revival, edited by Paul MacDonald, Edinburgh University Press, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/torontomu/detail.action?docID=6145294.